Planning is enjoyable until you see someone else's planner and realize how basic your planner appears. This is something I really struggled with.
If I want to be effective and productive, I don't have time to draw, make widgets, and so on. So my planner is just plain text, with occasional doodling. That's why I like Notion. It gives me space for creativity and keeps me productive and accountable.
One advantage of the Notion is that it can be made visually appealing quickly and with little effort.
Notion is free to use, so make an account and get started. If you want more out of it, such as working with a team or employing AI (which is fairly good), you can select and pay for a subscription plan.
Let's begin with a few pointers on how to quickly make your idea look as beautiful as possible:
Set a color for all icons
You chose your style and color scheme, and instead of constantly changing the color of the icon, you may make it the default.
Your icons will be the color you selected.
Use Columns
Columns can improve navigation and aesthetics in your design.
Enter /columns and select how many columns you want. Then you can add your calendar or content to these columns to make it more visually appealing.
Animated Cover
I adore these lo-fi animated covers, but did you know you could have them animated and have them in your planner? All you need to do is visit this website: Giphy.com.
Copy the gif link.
Add it to your cover page.
Colorful divider
Notion has a divider that is just a single line. As an alternative, you can create in Notion colorful line.
You simply create an empty line and modify its background. You now have a thicker and more colorful divider.
Use toggle list
Write in the line: /toggle list.
This allows you to hide data when it is no longer needed, keeping your planner more neat. It's also a good idea to design a navigation system for your planner.
If you have a headings in your page, you can select which heading to include:
But in the Toggle list you can put into the block anything you want to hide later.
Use widgets
If you have the time and want to add something more to your planner or tracker, use widgets. I like the website widgetbox.app.
There are a few free widgets you can incorporate into your designs. You can personalize them, and then simply copy the embedded link and paste it into the Notion.
It can look like this with a clock or calendar:
Create buttons
This is the most beneficial tip. You can build a button for easier access. I'm utilizing buttons to generate new entries in my planner and return to the dashboard. This button adds a new entry in the database and opens a template, allowing me to quickly write my schedules.
Here is my buttons for my daily plan and weekly plan. It adds new entry into the table and opens my template.
I added a button in the template that leads you back to your dashboard. Everything is as simple as one click.
Use filter to hide excessive amount of data
Filters are ideal for use with daily planners. You can filter your data by date and conceal completed tasks or days. You will save space and have cleaner-looking tables. It is very simple to do.
Progress bar and formulas
The progress bar should not be missing any trackers. You can now make it quite easily, but you can also create a formula if you want your progress bar to be a little more complicated.
In the table add property Formula. Than you can edit this property and choose how it's shown, color, number format and edit the formula.
Here is simple formula for progres bar for your goals and actuals.
Connect tasks with calendar
Use relations in your Notion. Visualizing the work on the calendar is essential if you want to stay accountable and see everything in one spot. However, you can link your task list to your calendar. It saves time and looks great.
- Create new table: /tableview (+ New table)
- Change the name of the table
- Add property date and property checkbox.
- Create your calendar from the table: /calendarview
- Find the name of your table
- In calendar setting click edit properties Show in calendar - you can hide properties you don’t want to see in your calendar
Every time you add a task to your table, it will be visualized in the calendar.
Next tip is to adjust calendar if you want to see whole month or just a week.
Set template as default
Save time and create a template. If you use the planner every day or month, you can create a template and set it as the default. With a single click, you will be taken right into your design.
You'll set it in the table - blue arrow next to New; click on three dots and set as Default.
Check out my page if you want some Notion Aesthetic Templates that don't require any extra work. As an alternative, open the library in the Notion and select something you like.
I hope this was helpful.
Talk to you soon.
~Karolina
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